FY 2027 Senate LHHS Appropriations Request: Funding and Oversight for Bone Health and Osteoporosis Care

April 13, 2026

The Honorable Shelley Moore Capito, Chair
The Honorable Tammy Baldwin, Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chair Capito and Ranking Member Baldwin,

On behalf of 15 national aging, health, family caregiver and bone health organizations, we are writing to express our sincere thanks for your longstanding efforts on behalf of the more than 50 million Americans who have or are at risk of osteoporosis and to request the Subcommittee’s continued attention to the crisis in bone health and osteoporosis as you consider fiscal year 2027 appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services. As you know, one in two women and one in four men over the age of 50 will suffer a bone fracture in their lifetime due to the chronic disease osteoporosis. In 2018 alone, approximately 1.8 million Medicare beneficiaries—70 percent of them women—experienced about 2.1 million osteoporotic fractures.

The breadth and scale of the impact of fractures tied to osteoporosis is stunning:

• 30% of those who suffer hip fractures die within a year.

• 42,000 patients institutionalized in nursing homes within three years.

• 23% of opioid-naïve hip fracture patients became chronic opioid users after surgery.

• Without reforms, total annual cost among Medicare beneficiaries will grow from $57 billion in 2018 to over $95 billion in 2040, as our population ages.

Click here to read and download the full letter.